Microsoft Continues to Fish in Apple's Pond

I previously reported about having gotten e-mail from a Microsoft representative. It turns out, that was only the US activities.

Today I got a phone call from a lovely lady (obviously native German speaker) from CBS, you know, those TV guys. CBS apparently also does telemarketing and they got hired by Microsoft to call all European iOS developers to try to see whom they might get on board of Windows Phone 7. CBS has received a list of developers from Microsoft who seem to have gotten it by scraping the app store.

Microsoft is offering the following trinkets to make the switch a bit more interesting:

75 Euros Sign-Up Fee waived if you have at least one WinPhone7 compatible app released by December.

free tech support

they’ll even reservere your app name for you on their store

a slew of workshops

a free copy of Windows 7 for your development PC

a free mobile device

I interrogated the caller a bit about how their activities are working out so far in other countries and especially in Austria. She said that it’s going really well in Great Britain and Italy, and so-so in France and Germany. I was the third Austrian iOS developer she had called, but she just began. Well, having a name beginning with D got me on the third place of an alphabetical list it seems.

Hey, and you don’t have to totally switch. Just “make one app compatible” until December to not have to pay the sign up fee…

Being the solo-developer that I am I certainly don’t want to spread myself too thin. Also I don’t think that it would be wise to branch out to other platforms while I still have so much more to learn about iOS development. Some time ago I formulated my own credo to be “focussed on iOS, but diversified widely on one platform.” That’s my plan.

But you’re free to do whatever you like, if a free Windows 7 mobile phone is all it takes for you to turn your back on iOS then please DO leave.